Out Of Breath
by fallible
Summary: Seven years ago, a woman went missing. Even now, her family are struggling to stay afloat because of it - can she really be dead, or is she alive somewhere?
1. Chapter One

It's a cold day. November is always cold. It's always the same. Year in, year out. The same. He fell in love in December and that's when the ice began to melt and he felt that, on the water it became, he could sail somewhere new. Become someone else.

November represents everything he hates. If he could, he would cut it out entirely. August, October and then straight to December and January. If he had his way, he would sleep through November. Animals sleep for months at a time. Is he really any more than one of them? Why should different standards apply?

He strolls aimlessly through the crowd, suddenly aware at how gray the world around him has been painted. Large, brash, clumsy brushstrokes in a tone devoid of colour. The sidewalk is gray. People's faces. Trees, cars, restaurants. There is no beauty left. You cannot find beauty in a grayscale.

The people passing through him, they don't know it. They live in Technicolor existences and they smile, and they laugh, and they sing. They don't notice him. They don't want a large turpentine stain to blot their oil paintings.

They're on the same routes, though. Separate paths, but they're parallel – they lead to the same place. Everyone's going to the same place, he thinks bitterly, compressing a leaf into the ground with his toe. It upsets him, but it's true – and that makes it better. Truth is important. He breathes truth. They know this, yet they do not feed him with his oxygen and so his lungs are continually gasping. Poisoned by lies. Toxicities.

One day, someone might realise and join his march. Yeah, one day – but one day is an infinitely expansive stretch of time. He can't build a life on one days. This is why he does not live – this is why he is content with existence. One day. One day.

One day at a time; that's what they all kept telling him. Take it one day at a time, and we'll get there. We'll get there, we promise. You can move on, we promise. We promise, we promise, we promise. He soon learnt that 'we promise' is as fictitious as 'one day'.

He is suddenly aware that he is cold. Freezing cold. The wind bites and encircles him and he realises that it is snowing. Not picture perfect Christmas card cotton wool, but harsh, gray sleet. The world painted on Christmas cards isn't real. It's not there. There is nowhere so beautiful – so idyllic – so forgiving. He has learnt this, but that won't retract the pain.

"Chandler!" A woman's voice calls out to him from a shop front to his left. He does not dare to turn around. Like this, blind, he can imagine that it is her. If he looks, his eyes will tell him what his mind refuses to.

It's not her.

"Chandler!" The cry is insistent, welcoming.

It's not her.

He turns.

It's not her. Yeah – it never is.

-

_SEVEN YEARS AGO:_

_-_

"Phone me as soon as you get there!" he reminds her, handing her the suitcase he just packed for her (a romantic gesture, although he knows that she'll repack the second his back is turned; it's a tradition, of sorts).

"I will," she replies wearily. They have been through this conversation at least five times in the last hour.

"Look after our little guy for me," he insists, patting her stomach protectively.

"I will," she reiterates.

"Don't fall in love with any hot British guys!"

"I will."

He glares at her. "I won't! I won't! I said I won't! Now would you stop worrying, please, sweetie? It was cute at first, but you're starting to get on my nerves!" He sniffs, offended, and she rolls her eyes. "Look, you'll see me and Benjamin again in a couple days!"

"Benjamin? I knew it! You _are_ seeing a hot British guy, aren't you?"

She cocks an eyebrow. "Benjamin as in our son!"

He counts on his fingers – "Charlie... Marcus... I don't remember a Benjamin..."

"Benjamin as in our unborn son..."

"Since when is our unborn son called Benjamin?" He folds his arms, knowing before they begin that she will win the fight, but desiring of the beautiful dance that will ensue. If he's honest with himself (and he rarely is), he is only employing tactics to delay her departure.

He doesn't want her to go. Something's wrong.

"Since I decided last night?"

"I am not having a son called Benjamin!"

"What's wrong with Benjamin?"

"I once married a guy called Benjamin..." He lowers his voice. "Messy divorce."

"When was this?"

"Uh... Kindergarten..."

"We'll discuss _that_when I get home!"

_If _you get home, he mentally corrects her. If. It's not a certainty. Nothing's a certainty in this world – but that doesn't ease the gnawing inside of him. He doesn't mention it to her – he knows that it will be dismissed as easily as any other unfounded fear, but it's still there. It's still eating away at him. Something's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

"And Benjamin?" he asks, his voice a tone too low, his heart a beat too fast.

"Benjamin is _not_ open for negotiation. He's _my_ son!"

"And what am _I_? The guy next door?"

"Do you want a pregnant lady to hit you?"

"That's never stopped you before..."

She feigns anger and even he, who wakes up next to that face every morning, is surprised by the beauty that flashes through it. Lightning in his dark sky.

"Now, you make sure our little guy gets there okay, yeah?"

"And what about me?"

"Unless you plan to give birth five months early on the plane, it's going to be pretty hard for him to get there without you... anyway, you're just my baby machine. Once we've had enough, I want a divorce!"

"Oh, and four isn't enough for you?"

"I was hoping for an even number."

"And four is... what?"

"When I say an even number, I mean an even_ ten_."

"You _are_ kidding me, right? Do I _look_ like I could fit six more of those things inside me?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

Amid the idle conversation, the empty words, he is struck by a sudden desire to grab her, to hold her, to rock her in his arms and to ask her – no, tell her – never to leave him. Not to get on that plane.

But he doesn't. No, he doesn't. It's a decision he'll regret for as long as he can know – with every fibre of the tapestry into which his life has been woven.

Instead, he settles for a fleeting kiss. Quick. Easy. No explanations. No side effects, except the guilt that it will heap onto his already hunched and aching back. It's okay, he tells himself. You can get tablets for that. You can get tablets for anything. Nothing's incurable. Nothing except a broken heart.

"Phone me as soon as you get there," he tells her, resting an arm on the door frame for support.

"You'll get my call the second I arrive, I swear," she replies. A quick kiss on the cheek, a wave, and she's gone.

He never gets the call.

She never arrives.


	2. Chapter Two

Thank you very much for all of your fantastic reviews! I forgot to mention this in the first part, but this is my first shot at fanfiction, and so constructive criticism would be really helpful – thank you again, and if you'd like to review again, then that would be really nice! Thanks.

II

He stood in the shower, motionless under the cascading torrents of water. He wanted to be cleansed. He wanted to be cleansed of her. He wanted every trace, every resin, of her touch to be gone from his body and he wanted to be free of this aching psalm of hopelessness.

His tears ran into the waterfall and the salt water permeated his body. He still wasn't fresh; he still wasn't free. He was dirty and trapped and so, so lost in the realms of an almighty labyrinth. Even if he found his way to the centre, the Minotaur would rear its ugly head. And so, he realised, movement was futile. Movement took him further away from her and nearer to something more terrifying. So he didn't move. He sat on the floor of the bath, his arms wrapped around his shivering body, and he did not move.

He sobbed. For hours, he sobbed.

That is where his son found him, pushing the bathroom door tentatively open; terrified of what he might see - shaken by the image of crimson mixing with water that had imprinted itself on his retina the last time he had been in this situation. Yes - déjà vu is a cruel master.

He looked at his father with long-suffering, long-fearing lamps shining brightly through the dimness of the room. He saw; for the first time, he saw.

Chandler sat, crouched, in the shower. Shaking, crying. Alone.

Marcus, choking with pity, grabbed his father by the arms, pulled him, unrelenting, to a standing position. He pulled a towel half-heartedly around him, hauled him out of the shower. Still Chandler did not move.

"Come on, Dad," mumbled Marcus. "You've got to give me a hand here."

Nothing.

"I can't do this on my own, Dad."

Chandler moved his head a millimeter to the right. It was something. It was progress. "Just get out of this room and I promise it'll be okay. We'll work it out if you can just move for me. Come on..."

He was lying. They both knew it.

---

---

---

---

"He's been like that before."

"You weren't there, okay? It was different this time! It was different. He's getting worse. Seven fucking years, and he's getting worse... I can't take this! I shouldn't have to take this! I can't go out with my friends because I have to stay home and make sure my fucking _father_ doesn't try and slit his wrists! It's not normal, Sam! _He_'s not normal! Someone normal would go to the doctors, get some pills, and _get over it_."

As soon as the words were out, he regretted them.

"You're even more of a dumbass than I already thought, Marcus. You know what happens when Dad goes to the doctors!" She lowered her voice to a hiss. "Remember what happened last time? Remember? Remember how they sent him away and how they split us up? Remember? Remember how we didn't see each other for six months? Remember how Charlie wouldn't stop crying, and they sent social workers round to check on us every weekend? Remember how Dad couldn't look us straight in the face for months? How he'd refuse to talk to us? Don't tell me you fucking forgot, Marcus. Don't tell me that, 'cause I won't believe you. Doctors, counsellors, social workers, they're all the same. They've all got it in for us. They don't want us to be with Dad, and if _you_ give in and go running to one of them, then our whole family's gone and it's your damn fault."

"Okay, okay!" He raised his hands into the air. "I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean... I didn't think..."

"You never do."

"Lay off of me, alright? What are we going to do about Dad?"

"There's nothing we _can_ do. He'll get out of this. He has to. He'll get out of this, and we can be a family again."

"Be a family, _be a family_," Marcus mocked. "That's all you care about. Being a family. What about having a life? Just because Dad chooses not to live doesn't mean we can't. You need to stop reading fucking fairytales, Sam... join the real world."

Sam turned away. "It's coming up to the anniversary of the funeral. You know it's always hard for him then."

"And it's not hard for us?"

"Come off it, Marc. You were eight. You don't remember her."

"People remember from when they were eight!"

"You don't. You can't even remember what happened _yesterday_! If you didn't drink so much..."

---

---

---

---

Chandler stood in the doorway. Listening. Listening was what he did best. He could not participate, could not talk, could not live – but he could listen. That was all he was good for now.

And, sometimes, all the words he had overheard and collated would play back – a million tape recorders all clamoring to be heard in the chaos of his mind. He had yet to discover a stop button. He suspected that this was because there was none.

"I wonder if she was beautiful," Sam mused, running a hand through her hair. "I mean, where else would I get my good looks?"

She was trying to lighten the situation. It was an unusual role for her – one that Marcus usually undertook wordlessly and without complaint. It was only now that she was beginning to realise that this was not a certainty – not a necessity. Marcus wasn't God. He didn't have to save them from the truth; and, from now on, maybe he wasn't going to.

"She was." Chandler spoke for the first time in three days from the spot where he had worn two deep grooves into the carpet. "I mean, she is."

He had spoken! He felt liberated; one of the crows which encircled him constantly had relented, and, through this small victory, he felt somehow as if he had overcome one of his demons. As if he were on his way to recovery. "Don't talk about her in the past tense."

Two heads whipped round to stare at him. Disbelieving, but desperate. Desperate for a father.

"She's still alive. I know she is." He closed his eyes, trying to block out their wary faces. "She talked to me. Last night, she talked to me. She told me that she's coming. She's coming, I promise." He let out a sob. "She's coming home."

"He's fucking insane," muttered Marcus to his sister. "He's crazy."

"I want her to come back," whispered Chandler. "I want her to so bad."

"Just because you want it doesn't mean it's going to happen, Dad." Ignoring the look his sister gave him, Marcus continued. "No, Sam. He's got to hear this. I don't care about whether it's going to hurt him – he's already hurt us enough and he has _got_ to hear this. Dad, you've got to move on. You're screwing everything up – for yourself, for us... for everyone. You've got to move on; for us, if for no one else. Can you do that, Dad?"

"I want to help you," Chandler whispered, croakily. "I want to help my kids."

"So, you'll give this a shot? No doctors or anything, just... living?"

Living. He wanted to live so much.

"Yes."

It was only half a lie.


	3. Chapter Three

Thank you _so_ much for all of the reviews – they are so lovely to read! Here is part three. It's a bit depressing (yes, again!), but this is only because the more hopeful (I'm loathed to say 'happy' because I don't want to make any false promises!) stuff is coming in the next chapter – this was originally part of another, longer chapter but… well, it worked ending it where I did, which explains why it's so short - so don't kill me!

I don't really understand how ratings work… some drug references and some swearing in this chapter. Don't get offended or scarred for life or anything…

III

"You said you'd clean up, Dad!" Marcus burst into the bathroom. "You _promised_ me you'd clean up!"

His father met his gaze unflinchingly, his vision half covered by a distorted haze. It was more comfortable that way; to see properly was to live in fear. Chandler had feared for long enough.

He did not say a word. He didn't speak when he was in one of his phases. He didn't speak. He didn't think – yeah, and that was the point. He didn't do anything but lie on the linoleum, cushioned by a mattress of needles and broken glass, and dream. It was always the same dream. Blurred, like his vision, as if filmed by a handheld video camera, and there was a woman. There was a woman standing there under the flickering fluorescent light with coal black hair and bewitching eyes. Magic lights, he used to call them, and she'd blink with pleasure, and they would disappear and then reappear with an alarming rhythm. From the first note of the symphony, he had been mesmerised.

But then she would disappear. She always did. No puff of smoke; no dramatic exit, no violins screeching their discordant sympathy. She just… stopped existing. That was the point of the dream that got him every time.

He let out a helpless sob.

"Sam found you," muttered Marcus. "Samantha. Your daughter. Remember her – or are you too screwed up to even remember yourself? She found you. She's only fourteen, Dad, and she finds her own father sticking some fucking _needle_ in his arm. Look at you! Just look at yourself for a second, okay?"

He paused, the breath sticking in his throat. The room was warm. "But you can't, can you? You're too fucking wasted to look at anyone – yeah, but I'll look, Dad. I'll look. You know what the hell I see? I see a wreck. You take drugs. You drink. You disappear for days at a time, and then you come back and you won't even talk to us! I'm sick of being the one who does all the talking… my throat hurts from lying for you! The social workers come round and you're so high you don't even know they're there and I have to pretend that – I don't know – everything's normal and we're living some kind of normal life, because I'm scared of… you know what, Dad? I don't even _know_ what I'm scared of any more! Scared of having to leave this shithole… of having a decent life with people who actually _care_ about me?" He leaned closer and Chandler could feel his breath on his neck. Hot. "Of losing the maniac who's been _screwing up_ my life for as long as I can remember?"

Chandler closed his eyes. Dark. Peaceful – so peaceful. He used to be afraid of the dark – thought that it was a veil for demons and nightmares to hide beneath. But, now? Now, he knew. He knew that a night light couldn't destroy the demon. It was right there – right inside him. There was no escape.

No, there was no escape.

Maybe if he just kept his eyes shut, then everything would go away.

"Dad! No! I didn't mean it, okay? Just open your eyes, Dad! You can't close them!"

"Don't take me to the hospital." The words were choked – hoarse and almost inaudible.

"You're not leaving me with much choice here, man! Don't go to sleep yet. Don't go to sleep!" It became a rhythmic chanting – a strange form of anti-lullaby. "Don't go to sleep. Don't go to sleep…"

Chandler ignored him.

-

-

"He's gone, isn't he?" Samantha's voice from the doorway was weary. Shaking, Marcus rose, struck by a desire to protect his younger sister – no, that was too selfless. Maybe he just longed to protect himself.

"No."

"Is he awake?"

"Does he _look_ awake to you, Samantha?"

"Fair point." She paused. "What do we do, Marc?"

He shrugged. "No idea. Why do we do anything? We're not under any obligation to do anything – we're not the adults here… he lied to us, Sam…"

"Again."

"Yep." He regarded his father's limp body. "He doesn't care about us. Why should we care about him?"

"We do, though…"

"Yeah. Yeah, we do."

"So we're going to do something?"

"I suppose we are."

"What do we do, Marcus?"

"Sleep." The words were soft. "We follow _Daddy_'s example, and we sleep. It'll all be better in the morning."

"It'll all be better in the morning…"

"You're repeating what I just said, Sam. Second sign of madness – watch out, or you'll find yourself taking after Dad…"

"He used to say that to me," she murmured. Memories of the life before were rare. Precious. They clung to them like limpets but it was still painful to know that they had once had what they now longed for – and they had lost it without a fair fight. Everything was painful. "In the old days. When he was still Daddy and we were still normal. It'll all be better in the morning… and then he'd kiss me, and he'd tell me that I was beautiful. I miss that…" She swallowed. "Anyway. I guess we'd better get him into bed."

"Yes – I suppose we better had."

As they dragged him slowly and achingly out of the room, Marcus spoke softly into the darkness. "This isn't right, Sam. It's not meant to be like this."

"I know."

"You ever wonder… what it would be like if we still had a Mom and a Dad?"

"I used to."

"Why'd you stop?"

"It hurt too bad."


	4. Chapter Four

Thank you **Ms Chanandler Bong Forever**, **PCGirl**, **BroadwayDiva**, **anhonestmoose** and **Exintaris **for reviewing the last chapter (I thought I'd name and shame you!). In my opinion, this chapter is definitely (well, probably) more cheerful – towards the end, at least. So, read, review, and enjoy!

IV

The knack of moving, he had long since realised, was to stay still. To attach yourself to something firmly secured to the ground – and to remain motionless. That was the hard part – to hold yourself down while a hurricane of her memories raged around you. Yes – she was the destructive gale which tried to knock him to the ground every time she blew through this void – the void he was bolted down to.

He spent very little time standing up.

There had been a funeral. Two empty caskets – one large and one small – lowered dutifully by two young men who had suddenly started to look so much older. They had not wanted to be there.

Neither had Chandler. It was all a façade – and their glass faces of tears and masks of grievance were trite and cheap. She, he knew, was six feet higher than any of them cared to claim.

Closure, they called it. Closure – he needed closure – and then they would pat him and smother him with their insufferably suffocating sympathy. But he could have never have closure – could never close - he was held permanently open by the winds that beat and blew their anger against the door whenever he tried to shut it. The creaking of the hinges would give him away every time – oh, he was growing old.

Alone or together, time passes - an unforgiving constant that will never pause regardless of loss. And sometimes the raging tunnels of wind relented – and, between bouts, there was time enough to sleep and, perhaps, to live. But sometimes the attacks were inexorable and he was powerless – dust and sand blown across an empty plane – that's all humans were, after all – particles of dirt pushed unwillingly together like inflexible rock by some sculptor whose handiwork was flawed.

But humans could think. And thinking was the danger – thinking caused it all. So, sometimes, when he could, he did not think.

It was the most peaceful he ever felt.

-

-

"I went to a church once, you know," Chandler told Marcus, taking a reluctant sip of water. Water. It was all he was allowed now. _For your own good_, they would repeat. _For your own good – it's for your own good_.

He did not know why they continued to believe that there was any good left within him. He was bad, all bad – in their fruit bowl still life, it took just one rotten apple to destroy the rest.

Apples cannot feel guilt – metaphorical or otherwise, they are still just fruit. But Chandler knew guilt – he knew it as well as the contours carved into his own palms. And that was the master sculptor's main blemish. He should have just gone with apples, Chandler mused. Apples were safe. Apples could not suffer this aching regret.

"You know, that's not too unusual, Dad. Quite a lot of people go every week – I don't think you're special…"

"There was this guy there," he continued, ignoring the interruption. "This guy, standing at the front, telling us all that we should have faith that _everything's going to get better_."

"Yeah. That would be the vicar… that's kind of his job…"

"But how the hell can he tell me that things are going to get better, Marc? Things don't get better! When have things _ever_ got better?"

"You may have a point there," Marcus conceded. _Don't argue_, he warned himself. _Don't argue – don't disagree – don't lose him again_.

"Faith isn't going to bring her back." Chandler's voice had dropped to a whisper. "What is, Marcus? What's going to bring her home to me?"

Marcus shrugged lightly. He knew that, if he didn't make a joke out of the situation, then the small nuggets of happiness he had discovered over the last few months would be permanently buried underwater. And so he joked. He joked like it didn't matter. Like it didn't mean anything to him, even though, some days, it was the only thing that did.

"Yeah, no… Religion's not going to do that… you might have a shot with magic, though." He paused. "You'd probably need a pretty big top hat to fit her in, though…"

"Aren't you too old for magic?"

"Aren't you?" Marcus countered.

"Yeah." The answer was resigned. "Yeah. Maybe I am."

-

-

Charles Jonathan Bing was ten years old. His hair was sandy brown, his eyes were cornflower blue – and he had not spoken a single word for seven years. His first conscious memories were of the ways that words could rip lives to shreds. To Charlie, words meant danger. Words meant death.

And, so, he did not speak.

His brother and sister had sent him to see a nice lady once – he remembered the way her hair hung in ringlets and the red of her lipstick stark against her face in a pleasant hue of raspberry. He liked her, yes – but he did not trust her. He would not speak to her. And so they had given up – and, after ten years, so had he.

He liked to draw. Drawings were not like words – they had no defined meaning that you could look up in a dictionary. They were open to interpretation. People could find their own meanings in a picture – and then it was nobody's fault but their own.

He would sit for hours crouched over a scrap of paper with thick black pencils and coloring crayons and he would talk through images. Art was one of his only methods of communication.

"What the _hell_ is _that_?" Chandler leaned over to observe the crayon picture that his youngest son was drawing. He wasn't thinking about drugs. He wasn't thinking about cigarettes or alcohol or closing his eyes and never letting them drift open again. He wasn't.

He wasn't – he wasn't – he wasn't – except that he _was_ and, like a growing stain – of blood, he thought, grimly – it was spreading over his mind and coloring everything there a different shade of red. It wouldn't be the same again – not with detergents and washing powder or soap or machines. It was ruined. _He_ was ruined.

_Concentrate_, he warned himself warily. Concentrate or they would know - know that this chance really was the last.

"It looks like…" He squinted, trying to stop his vision from doubling. "It looks like a caterpillar and some _very_ excited beetles having wild sex in… what appears to be… Prague?"

Marcus rolled his eyes warily. "It's a dog, Dad. Just a dog. Charlie wants a dog for Christmas."

"Oh. What about that whip then?"

"That's its tail. He's ten, Dad. I don't think he's into that kind of thing…"

"Oh. _Oh_. Oh, thank _God_… I'd thought I was going to have to buy my ten year old son some kind of insect pornography for Christmas…"

Marcus looked up. "Does that even exist?"

"Oh, the things you still have to learn, Marcus!" Marcus frowned uncertainly at him. "Yeah… no. It doesn't exist. Should, though…"

Marcus gave a short laugh and Chandler snapped his head up with a start to look at him. He had forgotten that his son knew how to laugh. The sound was desperately beautiful – and he longed to hear it again – longed to lie down listening to laughter filling to room until he was cushioned by it, and he could sleep.

"You never laugh any more," he observed quietly, running a hand through his lank and thinning hair. "None of you do. You don't play any more either… kids are meant to play. You're meant to laugh and play and enjoy yourselves and – what do you do instead?"

"We sit inside and freeze 'cause they cut the heating off and look at that cardboard box over there that would be a television if we'd paid the bills and we worry about where we're going to find you lying next time – about _if_ we're going to find you next time." Marcus spat the words with an unintentionally vehement force. He was not angry. He was too tired to be angry.

Chandler glanced up at him. And – for the first time – not only did he look, but he saw. "I screwed this up big time, didn't I?"

"That's one way of putting it, yeah," Marcus replied dryly. "I can think of some better ways but you'll probably prefer your one."

"What do I do?" he mumbled, voice rasping.

"You can start by making us dinner," suggested Marcus, his voice afloat with fake joviality.

Sam nodded and Charlie smiled his approval.

It was nice to be approved.

-

-

For the first few months after _her_ disappearance, the visits from relatives had been frequent. People find it hard to cry alone, so they spread out their pain amongst others – and then everyone cries. Humankind is a selfish race. But they had dwindled to a gradual halt over time. Everything must. As the tears dried up and the memories faded, there was no need to find comfort in friends – and, so, no need to visit.

The man who sat opposite them in the living room did not want to be there. He did not want to be the one to spend time in this house – to spread news to these people. He shared a few pints of blood with the children, but the man… the man had stopped being anything to do with him a long time ago. And blood alone was not enough to tie him down.

No, he didn't want to be there at all.

Ross cleared his throat awkwardly, his gaze averted. He did not want to look at his relatives. If he couldn't see them, then he would not have to feel guilty. Only he did see – even when his eyes were closed, he saw what they had become – and the guilt at any one point was enough to push him, sprawling, to the ground. He had to tell them.

"She- she's back," he mumbled. "They – they found her."

Chandler's head jerked suddenly upwards. Marcus realised, with a start, that this was the most alive he had ever seen his father. "What? She? Who's _she_?"

For him, there was only one _she_ – the one who dominated his thoughts and reduced him to tears each night in some kind of twisted ritual – a perverted prayer to a nonexistent God to bring a dead woman home alive. Like the plot of some farfetched and supernatural fiction. It wouldn't come true – it couldn't come true. Impossibilities cannot change. They remain forever impossible until the pain of acceptance becomes too hard to endure, and respite is finally granted. Yeah – he'd been waiting for that a long time.

"Monica, Chandler. Monica… They found Monica."

No.

The words reverberated around his thoughtless skull incessantly, each a shrill note in an opera he longed to conduct.

He blinked. The mist cleared. The spinning of his compass began to slow until, somehow, he could sense a direction. Some kind of a bearing. He had been lost for so long, but now he had direction, and the thought was so unnatural – so utterly terrifying – that he could not bear it.

The thought that had kept him clutching onto the renegade threads of sanity for seven years was the same reality that was forcing him to let go. It was horrifying. There was only one escape.

"I need a drink," he mumbled. Any excuse to get out of this room where the air, heavy with nicotine, pressed itself into his body and smothered him. Alcohol could help. Alcohol could always help to bring back the blurred horizon that was his only protection.

He stumbled into the kitchen on tired legs not used to such sudden movement, his shaking hands grasping uncertainly in the grime of the cabinet.

Ross watched him silently from the living room, edging forward slightly and leaning towards the three children in a conspiratorial pose, trying to avoid, as far as possible, sitting on the yellow-stained furniture. His house was always clean – he could not associate with this dirt – or the people who lived in it. "Is he always like this?" he whispered.

Sam gave a bitter laugh. "No. There are good days, and then there are bad days. It all depends."

"Please, God, tell me this is one of the bad days," Ross reciprocated.

Marcus eyed his father, who had given up trying to find a glass, and was drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. Dry, gasping gulps as if the drink were oxygen and his lungs were empty and heaving.

"No," he replied. "No – this is one of the best days we've had in a long time…"


	5. Chapter Five

**A/N**: I thank you all for your wonderful reviews! I also apologise for taking a couple of weeks to get this chapter up – I don't actually _have_ an excuse… I'm sorry! After reading through this story, I realise that I hate Chapter 3 with a vengeance… I am currently debating whether the story would flow if I just deleted it… let's see… anyway, Chapter 5! I quite like this one, actually (although I have read it through too many times and am now sick to the bones of it)…

Anyway, thank you TO: **Exintaris**, **BingIsBack**, **anhonestmoose**, **PCGirl**, **BroadwayDiva**, **SuicidalWhisper** and **Sea-Angel24** for reviewing – this is your reward! (I'm poor! I can't afford anything else)!

-

V

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Nineteen minutes past four greeted him in the dusty limbo. The aching gap between a sunset and a sunrise – it was always the same – always like this. The digits were green, and they glowed their disapproval into the semi-darkness - his only light source. He let his eyes relax and mould around their shape until the arrangement of lines became a white stamp branded onto his retina. That was, until the numbers changed with the passing of time and signalled the start of a brand new dance but no one to waltz with him.

Oceans of nausea often crashed over him at night. Normally, he could plug his ears and ignore the lapping of the tide, but tonight, she was being carried away on the crest of each wave, and as she cried, her face a waterfall of tears, to him for help, he could only watch. Motionless, he stared at her as she grew increasingly smaller, his body paralysed with a fear of the unknown, as the national movements of the Earth gradually inched her away from him.

The tide was going out.

He fell out of the bed – it was easier than forcing his sluggish limbs into some pointless motion – and lay exactly as he landed, curled on the gray carpet. He was like a child enclosed inside his mother's womb – yes, he was safe now. She was coming home to him at last – the pull of the moon on the waters had changed direction finally.

And they would laugh and share some civilised bottle of wine, and then grow old on an armchair together. And then, when his number was called, and he was forced to leave the safety of this cocoon, they would blossom together – emerge triumphant and beautiful, each forming the wings of a majestic butterfly. Oh, they would fly.

"You couldn't sleep either?" Sam stood in the doorway, flannel pyjamas hanging off her skinny form, and a slight tremble – barely noticeable – held captive by the custody of her voice, and he realised how he loved her.

"No."

"Excited about tomorrow?"

"Not exactly…" He paused. "I just need to see her face. It'll be okay then… it's got to be okay then…" Inwardly, he smiled, but the emotion did not reach his eyes – the hope was not warm enough to melt them, and they remained frozen solid like ice. Tomorrow, he could begin to thaw.

"Dad – did you… did you hear what Ross said earlier? I mean – about Mom? She didn't know who she was… I mean…"

"Yes, that's right. She was lost." Just like him. They were both components on the same circuit, yes, and the wires joining them and the current running through them were the bond that they shared. They were both lost, but once they found each other, they could follow the path of breadcrumbs and find relief from the labyrinth; the labyrinth that Fate had led them into so cruelly.

"There's more than that, though… I don't think you heard this earlier, Dad, but… she – uh – she… has a kid…" The words came out in a reluctant rush.

Chandler was jolted upright by a sudden surge of electrical charge. "Benjamin?"

"Um… who?"

"Just someone I used to know," he whispered.

"Who?"

"Ex-husband."

She frowned. "Mom has an ex-husband? You never mentioned one before, Dad! Who is he?"

"Oh, no - not hers… mine."

"Is this something I should know about?"

"Probably not, no…" He swallowed. "Who's the father?"

"Of her kid? Dunno. He – Ross – didn't mention it. He was kinda in a hurry to get away, I think…"

"Isn't that something of a key fact to include?" queried Chandler, raising an eyebrow slowly. "Didn't he think that, you know, we might be interested to know that?" The pitch of his voice rose increasingly, the shrill sounds grating her ears. "Didn't he think that we – _I_ – have a _right_ to know?"

"You know Uncle Ross, Dad – if someone doesn't have 'saurus' at the end of their name, then he's just not interested…"

"Some things never change," he muttered. "How does that work, anyway? How come some things stay the same and other things change so much it kills you?"

"Are you talking about Mom?"

"No." He was not ready to stop lying just yet. He straightened up, and warily reached an arm out to push a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Go to bed. It's late."

"You're not in bed," she said, stubbornly, gesturing to his position on the floor.

"I'm close enough! I'm _next_ to the bed – that counts! Go to sleep, Sam. It'll all be better in the morning."

She gave a wide grin. "You know what, Dad? I think it will…"

-

-

-

"She's outside." Sam's voice was detached and did nothing to betray the tumultuous hysteria rumbling around her empty stomach. She had not been able to eat anything for breakfast. None of them had eaten since Ross's visit. There was no point. Food wouldn't change anything.

Marcus, who had been lying flat on his back on his mattress and fiddling with the flapping trim of his leather shoes, bolted upright. "_What_?"

"_She_ is _outside_. There. Getting out of Uncle Ross's car."

He leapt off the bed and landed, sprawling, flat onto the ground. Grasping the windowsill with shaking hands, he pulled himself upwards, trying to find some higher level, and pressed his nose up against the window pane.

An empty road.

"Is this meant to be a joke?" he demanded, not letting his eyes move from the gray winter sidewalk.

"To the right," Sam whispered, and he craned his head to see a solitary red car sitting quietly in the middle of the road, its engine still running.

A slim, dark-haired woman stood, partly obscured by a flickering yellow lamppost on the garbage streaked concrete, clasping her purse, white-knuckled, like a Bible – as if she were praying for some kind of salvation.

And that was her. His mother. The woman who, in some parallel universe, had given birth to him – had held him in her arms and promised him that she would love him for always. But had the promises been empty?

And if he focused entirely on her, let everything around him – gleaming metal and spray painted red dreams – blur into the luminescent shade of myopia, he could almost carry himself there, on the back of those long forgotten memories. To the days when tree branches were pistols and he was both Cowboy and Indian, the mud smeared across his face the symbol of his pride. When power was measured by whether you scrawled in pencil or pen, or whether you did joined up writing yet – and when he still had some kind of faith. When family was the strongest damn word he knew.

He shook like a leaf gently pried from its branch and left, with no allies, to the mercy of the unforgiving wind. And he was falling and falling and falling and –

"Put your head between your knees!" barked Sam.

"Excuse me?"

"Look – if I have to miss out on seeing her because I have to take my great lump of a brother to the Emergency Room, then I'll – I'll – well, let's just say it ain't gonna be pretty… now put your _damn_ head between your _freaking _knees, okay?"

He obliged, and felt an immediate rush of blood, bringing with it sharp relief. "Thanks," he mumbled gratefully. "I may have lost it a little there."

"Really?" remarked Sam dryly. "I hadn't noticed."

"Come on – we'd better get to the front door," sighed Marcus. "If we don't, she's gonna be greeted by a little boy who won't talk to her, and… well, Dad. Who, let's face it, is probably unconscious by now… God, what a great welcome committee we really are…"

They both smirked, savouring the moment as if it were the last.

-

-

-

The knocking came quietly at first, and they were unsure whether someone was there or whatever it was just boys with torn jeans and hooded sweatshirts kicking a football against someone's door. But the sound intensified and germinated, and blossomed into a wild jungle of frenzied noise – and then they knew.

Glancing across at his father, who was sitting upon the sofa, still and lifeless as a resident of the morgue, Marcus nodded encouragingly at his siblings. He tried to stride confidently towards the door, wishing beyond wish that his legs wouldn't tremble so much, and that his forehead wasn't so wet with cold sweat and anticipation. He flung the door open, and with it, the flood gates.

She stood there, frozen still – halfway through a motion, her eyes fixed upon him. She had his eyes, he realised – or, rather, he had hers - they were the color that the sky is painted by the sun in the early morning. And so, he understood, the sunrise had finally come.

He swallowed. "Um… hi." His voice was lower than normal, and it cracked with each movement of his tongue.

"Marcus?"

He nodded slowly.

She had been expecting the sturdy, self-confident little child that she had left behind; chubby and rosy-cheeked with closely cropped sandy hair plastered to the top of his head, and a wide grin that stretched immeasurably. Instead, she found a tall and frowning youth. Skinny and solemn, with long dark hair dripping to his shoulders and loosely fitting black clothes hanging off his trembling frame, he was unrecognisable as her son – her boy.

"Shit!" she exclaimed, trying to hide her disappointment at the immense change that stood before her. "You're huge!"

He stared at her uncertainly – almost, she thought, as if he were afraid that, if he let his gaze drift from her, then she would dissolve into a million droplets of water again and evaporate back into the sea of the past.

As it was, she was right. He was terrified of letting her go – terrified that she would not be able to rescue them from this house – from this life.

"Hello, Mom," he whispered.

-

-

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**A/N:** Yes, I am terrifically mean for ending it there and not letting you find out what happens between Chandler and Monica, but, hey! I'm the author! It's my prerogative!


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